Teaching for analogical transfer as a means of improving problem-solving,thinking and learning

Analogical transfer is transfer of a basic structure acquired through one or more instances to another instance. A basic structure like this is sometimes called a paradigm. Paradigmatic teaching, i.e. teaching for analogical transfer, requires the teaching of a basic structure by appropriate exemplars as well as the teaching of its application in various fields and contexts. This is demonstrated using research on teaching for problem-solving, inductive thinking, and learning-to-leam.Invited paper presented at the joint meeting of the Dutch Research Association on Instructional Processes (OTG), the German Division for Empirical Educational Research (AEPF) of the German Educational Association and the Division for Educational Psychology (FPP) of the German Psychological Association on April 23–25, 1989, at the University of Twente, The Netherlands.     

Current educational technology research trends in Japan

To examine trends in educational practice research, this article conducted a survey and analysis of factors affecting the review of research papers in the field of the educational technology in Japan. Two factors, namely, practical orientation and theoretical orientation, were extracted from 63 survey responses, and scores from members of a Japanese academic society were compared with the scores of its editorial board. Results show that the two factor scores were not correlated to each other, and they are independent measures for any evaluation or review of research articles. Also, there was no significant difference between society members and editorial board members, i.e., their preferences when reviewing research papers were identical. For the second part of this study, a group composed of anonymous members of an editorial board conducted a paper review of 12 published “practical papers” and 11 published “general papers.” Results indicated that there was no significant difference between the two categories. The final rating scores of these 23 papers were analyzed using a decision-tree rating model. Results also indicated that for publication, papers need to contribute to theoretical research, in addition to contributing to basic educational practice research in educational technology.     

Classroom behavior of children and adolescents with learning disabilities: a meta-analysis

Meta-analysis was used to review the results of 25 studies that compared the classroom behavior of children and adolescents with learning disabilities (LD) to children without learning disabilities. The data were analyzed from several different methodological perspectives. Results showed that both methodologically strong and weak studies demonstrated significant behavioral deficits of children with learning disabilities compared to their nondisabled peers in each of five overall areas: on-task behavior, off-task behavior, conduct disorders, distractibility, and shy/withdrawn behavior. Both observational and teacher rating data demonstrated these differences. Effect sizes for both groups of studies seemed to cluster around 1 standard deviation, suggesting noticeable and educationally significant impairment in the behavior of children with disabilities. Analysis of grade-level effect sizes suggests some explanation for the large number of referrals often witnessed during the elementary school years. Educational implications of these behavioral differences in terms of implications for mainstreaming are discussed.     

Content Specificity of Expert Judgments in a Standard-Setting Study

This study investigated the comparability of Angoff-based item ratings on a general education test battery made by judges from within-content specialties and across content domains. Judges were from English, mathematics, science, and social studies specialties in teacher education programs in a midwestem state. Cutscores established from the judges'ratings of out-of-content items differed little from the cutscores set using the ratings made by the content specialists. Further, out-of-content ratings by judges were not more influenced by performance data than were the ratings provided by judges rating items within their content specialty. The degree to -which these results generalize to other content specialties needs to be investigated.     

2005年普通高等学校招生全国统一考试“文综”、“理综”试卷(天津卷)评价

本文对2005年普通高考天津卷各学科试卷进行了总体评价,分析了试卷的突出特点,并根据考后全样本的统计数据对试卷及试题的教育测量指标进行分析。同时结合各学科特点在知识领域、能力层级等方面进行更深层次的发掘,从命题设计和评卷分析的角度对教学和复习提出了建议。     

Pedagogical issues in distance education

Head of the Distance Education Division, Central Institute of Educational Technology, National Council of Educational Research and Training, New Delhi. Previous founder director of the Open School of India. Member of numerous committees and commissions at national level, in particular, the National Task Force on Broadcasting for Education (1980/81) and the Commission for Teachers — I Task Force (1983/84). Author or co-author of five books, including Open School India,and numerous articles.     

Problems in Scoring,Agreement among Raters,and Internal Consistency of Selected Marker Tests

Selected Marker Tests, of Educational Testing Service and Sheridan Psychological Services, Inc., were examined in terms of problems in scoring and internal consistency. The tests were administered orally to 116 sixth and seventh grade students. Problems in scoring were discovered and changes were suggested. The agreement between two independent judges on part scores was high. Twenty-one of 28 correlations were .90 and above. Item correlations with part and total scores, using Cureton’s correction, were frequently very low, and many items did not meet the desirable difficulty level for norm-referenced tests. The study suggests that, with the sample used, the problem is not one of agreement among judges but, rather, one of item reliability.     

Scoring a Performance-Based Assessment by Modeling the Judgments of Experts

Performance assessments typically require expert judges to individually rate each performance. This results in a limitation in the use of such assessments because the rating process may be extremely time consuming. This article describes a scoring algorithm that is based on expert judgments but requires the rating of only a sample of performances. A regression-based policy capturing procedure was implemented to model the judgment policies of experts. The data set was a seven-case performance assessment of physician patient management skills. The assessment used a computer-based simulation of the patient care environment. The results showed a substantial improvement in correspondence between scores produced using the algorithm and actual ratings, when compared to raw scores. Scores based on the algorithm were also shown to be superior to raw scores and equal to expert ratings for making pass/fail decisions which agreed with those made by an independent committee of experts     

民国时期的英语测试及评价

本文从史料出发探讨民国时期的英语测试状况,关注的教学机构为教会学校。作者首先介绍民国时期英语教学的基本状况,解析当时英语测试的理论背景,再现其形式,讨论其用途,最后进行评价。结语指出,尽管民国时期在语言测试史上属于科学前时期,教会学校的英语教师们在语言测试上做出的积极谨慎的努力对今天仍有借鉴意义。     

The Rating and Matching Item-Objective Alignment Methods

Central to the standards-based assessment validation process is an examination of the alignment between state standards and test items. Several alignment analysis systems have emerged recently, but most rely on either traditional rating or matching techniques. Little, if any, analyses have been reported on the degree of consistency between the two methods and on the item and objective characteristics that influence judges' decisions. We randomly assigned judges to either rate item-objective links or match items to objectives while reviewing the 2004 Arizona high school mathematics standards and assessment. Across items we found moderate convergence between methods, and we detected apparent reasons for divergently scored items. We also found that judges relied on item and objective content and intellectual skill features to render decisions. Based on our evidence, we contend that a thorough alignment analysis would involve judges using both rating and matching, while focusing on both content and intellectual skill. The findings have important implications for states when examining the alignment between their standards and assessments.     

澳大利亚信息技术与课程整合研究现状--对AJET的一项内容分析研究

信息技术与课程整合是教育信息化与新课程改革的关键问题之一,也是国内外教育实践与研究的热点问题。为了了解澳大利亚的信息技术与课程整合的研究现状,笔者对1985年至2005年《澳大利亚教育技术学杂志》(The Australasian Journal of Educational Technology,简称AJET)上所刊发的信息技术与课程整合方面的相关论文进行了文献研究与内容分析,以期对我国的信息技术与课程整合的研究与实践活动提供参考依据。     

Applying the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO) Taxonomy on Student's Learning Outcomes: An empirical study

This article explores the application of different educational taxonomies in measuring students' cognitive learning outcomes. The objectives were to compare three educational taxonomies--namely, the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy, Bloom's taxonomy and reflective thinking measurement model--and to test the application value of these taxonomies. A comparative literature review was conducted to provide an underlying conceptual framework. Recommendations from this review were examined experimentally. Scripts of long essay papers and short classroom discussion responses were analyzed by the modified versions of the taxonomies. It was found that SOLO is suitable for measuring different kinds of learning outcomes. However, finer categorization of SOLO levels did not eradicate the problem of SOLO's conceptual ambiguity. It is suggested that the next step of research should be on setting up panels of judges to find out which taxonomy is suitable for measuring what learning outcomes under which contexts.     

Influence of Type of Judge, Normative Information, and Discussion on Standards Recommended for the National Teacher Examinations

There are few empirical investigations of the consequences of using widely recommended data collection procedures in conjunction with a specific standardsetting method such as the Angoff (1971) procedure. Such recommendations include the use of several types of judges, the provision of normative information on examinees' test performance, and the opportunity to discuss and reconsider initial recommendations in an iterative standard-setting procedure. This study of 236 expert judges investigated the effects of using these recommended procedures on (a) average recommended test standards, (b) the variability of recommended test standards, and (c) the reliability of recommended standards for seven subtests of the National Teacher Examinations Communication Skills and General Knowledge Tests. Small, but sometimes statistically significant, changes in mean recommended test standards were observed when judges were allowed to reconsider their initial recommendations following review of normative information and discussion. Means for public school judges changed more than did those for college or university judges. In addition, there was a significant reduction in the within-group variability of standards recommended for several subtests. Methods for estimating the reliability of recommended test standards proposed by Kane and Wilson (1984) were applied, and their hypothesis of positive covariation between empirical item difficulties and mean recommended standards was confirmed. The data collection procedures examined in this study resulted in substantial increases in the reliability of recommended test standards.     

The landscape of educational technology viewed from the ETR&D journal

The purpose of this study was to conduct a citation network analysis of Educational Technology Research and Development (ETR&D) to examine the trends and issues of the educational technology field's scholarly community that have evolved in the past two decades. The distinctive features of citation network analysis used in this study derive from a social network analysis approach to see relational and network patterns in the citation data. From this citation network analysis, we obtained the following results: (1) the ETR&D network revealed structural attributes that help us understand the features regarding how the field has developed and how scholarly works have interacted; (2) the most influential papers and scholars in the field were identified; (3) frequently co‐cited papers were recognized as having a strong relationship by a few researchers and (4) five cohesive subgroups (factions) generated key research themes in the field including: instructional design, learning environments, the role of technology, educational technology research and psychological foundations. Implications and limitations of the study were discussed for future research.     

Using Rating Augmentation to Expand the Scale of an Analytic Rubric

A method of expanding a rating scale 3-fold without the expense of defining additional benchmarks was studied. The authors used an analytic rubric representing 4 domains of writing and composed of 4-point scales to score 120 writing samples from Georgia's 11th-grade Writing Assessment. The raters augmented the scores of papers on which the proficiency levels appeared slightly higher or lower than the benchmark papers at the selected proficiency level by adding a “+” or a “?” to the score. The results of the study indicate that the use of this method of rating augmentation tends to improve most indices of interrater reliability, although the percentage of exact and adjacent agreement decreases because of the increased number of rating possibilities. In addition, there was evidence to suggest that the use of augmentation may produce domain-level scores with sufficient reliability for use with diagnostic feedback to teachers about the performance of students.     

Jan: A Technique for Analyzing Group Judgment

This paper indicates how a technique which groups criteria in terms of the homogeniety of their associated prediction equations can be used to identify and describe the rating policies within a group or board of judges.     

传统大学的变革与远程教育的发展——访国际远程教育领域资深专家托尼·贝茨教授

托尼·贝茨教授(Tony Bates)是国际开放与远程教育领域最知名的专家之一。他早年曾协助创建英国开放大学,并在该校工作近20年。1995年至2003年底,贝茨教授在加拿大温哥华的英属哥伦比亚大学(University of British columbia,简称UBC)担任远程教育部主任一职,同时兼任UBC的高等教育学习技术计划与管理国际中心主任。2004年,他创建了专门从事网上学习及远程教育的规划与管理的托尼·贝茨有限公司(Tony Bates Associates Ltd.),并担任董事长及行政总裁。目前,他还担任西班牙的巴塞罗那加泰罗尼亚开放大学的网络学习研究中心主任一职。此外,贝茨教授多年来还一直在世界银行、世界经济合作及发展组织、联合国教科文组织,以及全球三十多个国家的大学及政府部门担任顾问工作。贝茨教授的研究成果非常丰硕,至今共发表了350余篇论文,出版了9本有关远程教育及技术在教学中的应用方面的著作,他的研究涵盖了远程教育实践的各个方面,其中最突出的就是ACTIONS媒体选择模型和关于远程教育成本一效益的研究。此外,他还是远程教育和教育技术领域内6本学术杂志的编委。目前,贝茨教授的研究兴趣主要包括:传统大学中网络学习的应用及其成本-效益问题,网络学习的多元文化问题,以及网络学习和国家经济发展之间的关系等等。     

对《教育研究》杂志的文献计量学分析

该文利用文献计量学原理,从刊载论文的文章来源、研究方法、研究内容和所附引文等方面对《教育研究》1995-2003年所载论文进行了统计分析.研究发现,文章大部分来自高校,中小学教师的科研论文较少;研究方法多偏思辨,纯思辨的文章较多;引文类型渐次多样化,同时,引文数量虽然逐渐上升,但仍未达到平均引文量,而且,教育理论向实践的转化仍是个迫切的问题.     

The instructional developer

Summary The study reported in this article was conducted with a selected group of instructional developers, the members of the Division of Instructional Development of the Association for Educational Communications and Technologoy. While the information seems to represent the most complete set of data now available on this group, it is too limited to permit sweeping generalizations. The intention of the study was to survey instructional developers in order to obtain some information about their demographic, professional, and ideological characteristics. A major thrust of this study dealt with what range of learning theories and instructional guides the developers used in dealing with problems of learning and development.